According to Ken Graham, director of the National Hurricane Center in Miami, the category 2 Michael "is a very large storm."

As of Tuesday afternoon, the eye of dangerous Hurricane Michael was moving north over the Eastern Gulf of Mexico with life-threatening storm surge, hurricane-force winds and heavy rainfall expected along the Northeastern Gulf Coast.

The National Hurricane Center reported: "Hurricane-force winds extend outward up to 45 miles from the center and tropical-storm-force winds extend outward up to 175 miles."

We did the math and broke it down for you:

• Michael was about 350 miles across, with the hurricane-force winds about 90 miles in diameter.

• At 5 p.m. Tuesday, Michael's tropical storm-force wind field was 96,211 square miles. That's a little smaller than the state of Colorado.

• The hurricane-force wind field was about 6,361 square miles, which is about the size of Delaware.

How does Michael measure up to other Florida hurricanes?

In 2017, Hurricane Irma's massive 400-mile wind field, combined with a track that took it straight up the peninsula, made it the costliest Florida hurricane on record. By comparison, Category 5 Hurricane Andrew was tiny, reaching a peak diameter of only about 200 miles before it devastated south Florida in 1992.

Stay away from the water — oceans, streams and rivers, he said, adding conditions will deteriorate quickly.

Storm surges pose a threat, too.

"This is a situation where you'll have the heavy rain, but the storm surges are a very life-threatening situation," said Graham. "This is an incredibly vulnerable area, the Gulf of Mexico. The water piles up really quickly, it's a very dangerous situation."